


Early One Morning

by mydogwatson



Series: Postcard Tales: Interlude [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A little angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Use, Honeymoon, M/M, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 14:38:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11923008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: Sherlock and John face the early morning apart and together. Together is better.





	Early One Morning

**Author's Note:**

> This is the halfway point of this little series, which I hope you are enjoying. This particular tale is one I had to force myself to stop writing, because there were other mornings I could think of. But life is short. Hope you like.

1

He jolted awake suddenly, not knowing for a too-long moment where he was.

Not in his rather horrid little flat on Montague, obviously. And now that he thought about it, that flat was no longer even his, the landlord being quite prickly about both the occasional explosion and the more than occasional unpaid rent. Neither was he in the ‘social club’ [for which read ‘drug house’] where he occasionally passed an evening. Or a weekend. Or the odd Wednesday afternoon.

Anyway.

Actually, the last place he remembered being was in an alleyway not far from the canal. After musing about it for a moment, he also remembered thinking that maybe he had somehow messed up his calculations. Or that his usually reliable dealer had sold him something not quite as pure as had been advertised. As he recalled, fuzzily, he’d felt a bit sick and the stars had apparently blinked out, one by one.

And now that his mind was slouching towards wakefulness, the room around him was starting to look vaguely familiar.

He remembered Mycroft’s endless moaning about the fact that Mummy was determined to take over the decoration of the guest room in his new home. Usually, their mother favoured a cosy and understated style, but for some reason in this room she had decided to go all Versailles. This morning the décor was doing nothing to settle his still-roiling stomach.

Some questions remained: How had he arrived here? And why?

It was clearly very early, judging by the oyster-grey light filtering in from the tall window opposite the bed. He realised that his [admittedly pretty dreadful] clothing had disappeared, to be replaced by a pair of silk pyjamas which obviously belonged to his odious brother. Because he could compartmentalise, no matter his current state, one part of his mind was already wondering if he might somehow liberate the pyjamas from Mycroft’s greedy hands, because the soft fabric felt very nice against his skin.

And it was as if the very thought summoned up the creature, because at that moment, the door opened and Mycroft came in. Despite the early hour, he was already wearing his usual three-piece suit and a tie with the usual perfect Windsor knot. He was carrying a silver tray that held a cup of tea and some toast. Once the tray had been carefully set down on the bedside table, Mycroft gifted him with an absolutely faux smile. “Good morning, brother mine.”

“Go away,” Sherlock muttered, more out of habit than anything else.

“Is that the way you should talk to someone who hauled you personally out of that malodorous alley and made sure that you survived your own stupidity?”

Instead of responding to that, Sherlock picked up one slice of toast [which had been cagily dribbled with heather honey] and took a small nibble. Then he sipped a little of the perfectly brewed Fortnum and Mason Smokey Earl Grey. His stomach thought briefly of rebelling, but then settled, so he took another bite and another swallow.

“Sadly, I have an important meeting in---” Mycroft glanced at his expensive Swiss watch. “---twenty-two minutes, so I must depart. Since you have no place else to go, this room is available. Temporarily. I suggest that you might use the time to consider your life choices.” With that, he turned and left the room.

After a moment, Sherlock picked up the Guardian that was also on the tray. He read it while finishing breakfast, taking very little interest in the political stories or the fretting over international sabre-rattling. He was not, after all, his brother. But there was one story, buried on page A17 about a recent series of mysterious murders that was baffling Scotland Yard.

After a few minutes, with all the toast eaten and the last drop of tea swallowed, he crawled out of the really very comfortable bed and padded barefooted down the corridor to Mycroft’s office. A shiny new Mac, that he didn’t think was even available to mere mortals yet, sat on the over-sized desk. It took only a few minutes for him to get into the Scotland Yard files and track down the detective mentioned in the newspaper article. Geoff Lestrade. Or Gavin. Something like that.

After less than an hour, Sherlock had read everything the Yard knew about the murders. Which was pitifully little. Then he steepled his fingers under his chin and thought.

When, a short time later, the solution came to him, Sherlock couldn’t help giving a short laugh.

Most people were probably just now eating breakfast and he had already solved a case for the idiots at the Yard. He sent an email to that fellow Lestrade, giving him the answer, as well as telling him where the killer would probably be found.

Although he took his time with a hot shower, using far too much of Mycroft’s expensive soap and shampoo, and then dressing in the new clothes that had been set on a chair in the bedroom [pants, socks, jeans, a surprisingly acceptable midnight blue shirt] there was still no response to his email when he checked, which surprised and disappointed him a bit. Wouldn’t some thanks be in order?

In lieu of any payment from Scotland Yard, he took the silk pyjamas with him when he left.

+  
It was actually Mycroft who found an email from someone named Gregory Lestrade when it arrived the next day. Sherlock had already vanished back into his apparently natural milieu, the drug dens and alleyways of London.

With a sigh, Mycroft printed out the email and folded it carefully into his wallet, hoping that there would be a chance at some point to show his brother the words of praise from the detective.

*

 

2

The nights were colder than he had thought they would be, even when the days that followed were almost unbearably hot. John supposed that such surprises should be expected when one travelled to exotic locales. If Afghanistan could be considered exotic.

He shimmied out from under the blankets and dressed quickly, eager to get to the mess for a cup of [fairly dreadful, but reliably hot] tea. Once his fatigues were on and his boots laced up, he ran a hand over his face to check the hair growth and decided that shaving could wait until tomorrow. Still, for one moment, he paused in front of the small and none-too-clean mirror some previous resident had hung over the small sink.

The man looking back at him was scarcely recognisable as the same one who had arrived here for the first time nearly two years ago. The eyes in the mirror were infinitely more tired, edged with a multitude of small wrinkles that had not been there before his tour of duty started. His skin was certainly browner than it had ever been, at least since his summer hols in Brighton as a kid. He tried a smile, but it sat uneasily on his face. Instead of John Watson’s former easy grin, the one he saw now belonged on the face of a man who had seen too much blood and tragedy. The man he now was.

And yet, despite all of that, John Watson felt as if he had found his element. War was apparently where he belonged and this was clearly the job that he had been born to do.

So: tea.

It was not even fully daylight when he stepped outside and headed for the mess. Rumour had it that the day ahead was likely to be busy, given recent troop movements towards an enemy enclave. Hopefully, transport would arrive to whisk away the patients who were ready to travel, so that beds would be freed up for the expected incoming wounded.

But it did not take long for the day to take a turn.

John had barely swallowed two gulps of tea and only managed one bite of toast when Major Sholto called for a volunteer to accompany a squad leaving immediately to recover the victims of a Chinook crash about two kilometres away. John exchanged a glance with the other surgeon at the table, then shrugged and stood.

The warming rays of an early morning sun hit his face as the Land Rover Pulse headed out.

John tried to ignore the sudden niggle on the back of his neck, a familiar feeling from the days when it would signal that the old man was about to explode into another bout of drunken violence. The tingle was a signal that he needed to head for cover, which usually meant crawling into the wardrobe in his bedroom. It was a place of safety that smelled of his old trainers and whatever stale biscuits he had hidden and forgotten about. 

But the old man was long dead and no danger to anyone now. There was no reason why John should be feeling that old warning of danger. After all, this was just one more rescue mission, like the half-dozen or so he had already participated in.

Pretty soon, he would be back at camp, getting more tea and maybe a bacon butty to make up for his interrupted breakfast.

This was just an ordinary mission on an ordinary morning. Nothing to worry about.

*

3

It was much too early to be awake. Especially considering everything that had happened the day before.

The first rays of the Mediterranean sun were just edging into the room, seeming to promise a glorious morning, which seemed fitting, at least in his opinion.

John rolled over [as best he could while trapped within the tender prison of two lanky arms and two endless legs] to stare at the ceiling. The cost of this room at the Capri Tiberio Palace Hotel was something he did not want to contemplate. They were not paying for it, of course, because Mycroft had insisted on gifting them with a honeymoon.

The understated ceremony at the registrar’s office yesterday morning had been followed by a jolly brunch at Angelo’s with their nearest and dearest [and Mycroft, Sherlock had muttered under his breath], and then had come the frantic dash to the airport for their first class flight to Italy. They might not have made it without Lestrade’s contribution of sirens and lights. For once Sherlock did not refuse to get into a police vehicle. It all seemed completely mad and John had fought the urge to just giggle more than once.

Their first quiet moment did not come until the middle of the flight, when Sherlock had actually fallen asleep, with his head resting on John’s shoulder. John listened to the soft not-quite snores coming from his new husband and wondered just how his life had come to this.

_This_ being what he could only call Happiness. 

It had been rather late by the time they finally reached the hotel, but the dining room staff was delighted to serve them a much-delayed dinner anyway. After they had eaten and sampled a bit too much of the excellent champagne, the two men finally made their way to the tastefully extravagant bedroom. Once there, all they had the energy to do was stand on the veranda for several minutes, staring at the lights twinkling in water off Capri. There was no need for words; everything had already been said. Very soon, they simply stepped back into the room, stripped off their wedding suits and fell into bed.

Sherlock had wrapped John in his arms before planting a kiss on his forehead, a kiss that was so sweet in nature that it made John want to weep. Too tired for anything more, they were both asleep almost immediately.

It was not often that John was awake before Sherlock, so it was a special kind of treat to watch his husband [!] sleep. He seemed softer, more fragile somehow and young. Vulnerable to the slings and arrows that the world sometimes seemed so keen on firing at him. Regretfully, John knew that he himself was not innocent in that regard and he also knew that his arrows had always been the most painful to the other man.

But that was the past and now they were joined together for life. Ruefully, John accepted that they had actually been bound together since that first day in the lab at Barts. It was only because they were a couple of idiots that it had taken them so long to reach this place of contentment.

John lifted his hand and admired the glint of his platinum ring in the morning sunlight that was now beginning to make its way across the bed. It took him a moment to realise that Sherlock was awake as well. They smiled at one another and Sherlock pulled John down to rest on his chest. “Good morning, husband,” he said in a slightly gravelly morning voice.

John just hummed a response.

Sherlock’s lips nuzzled in John’s hair as they stayed curled in the bed and watched the golden light as it illuminated the entire room. This morning felt as if it had been made just for them, a reward for finally reaching the place they had always been meant to be.

The sultry glow warmed them as they started to make slow and tender love on this first morning of their new life.  
Their real life.

**Author's Note:**

> Title From: Early One Morning by Walter de la Mare


End file.
